McPhee and Sasaki excited to return to action at Aragon

2019-09-18 03:47
PETRONAS Sprinta Racing’s John McPhee and Ayumu Sasaki are heading to this weekend’s Gran Premio de Aragon excited about returning to action in the Moto3 World Championship, only a week after a day of highs and lows at the San Marino Grand Prix. Both showing strong pace at Misano despite an unfortunate end to the race for Sakaki, they’re confident that they can once again be in the fight for the podium at MotorLand Aragon.

McPhee heads into the weekend off the back of an impressive podium finish at Misano, showing just how fast he was with an incredible charge through the field from 18th to second place at the chequered flag. Using that speed as a base for this weekend as he heads to a track that he loves, he’s keen to start where he left off in Friday’s practice sessions and prepare in the best way possible for Sunday’s race.

Sasaki had a less fortunate end to last Sunday’s race at Misano, getting caught out by another rider’s error and crashing on the opening lap. But, with impressive race pace of his own in practice and a strong weekend up until that point, he too is hoping that he can make another concentrated start to the weekend at a track where he has fond memories.

Moto3 returns to action this weekend at the Gran Premio de Aragon, with practice starting on Friday 20th September at 0900 local time (1500 Malaysian time) and race day at MotorLand Aragon on Sunday 22nd.

“Aragon is almost a home race for me because I live only a few hours from there and it’ll be nice to head to a track where I spend a lot of time training. We’re arriving off the back of a podium at a track where I’ve always struggled in the past, so to be strong at Misano and then go to six circuits in a row that I really like and always go well at is a great feeling. I’ve had some nice results at Aragon in the past and for the last few years I’ve been in the fight for the podium, so let’s see what happens when we head there looking so good.”

“With back to back races, it’s a chance to get over last weekend’s disappointment and start on Friday strongly and see what happens. Every race is different, so we don’t know how it’ll pan out yet, but last weekend was really great up until the race and I’ll keep working in the same way in Aragon. I just need to refocus my mind and see what happens. It’s a track that I really like though, and where I won the Rookies’ Cup in 2016. I’ve always had good results there so if we prepare well on Friday and Saturday, we’ll see what happens.”